


Bookshelf of a thousand stories

by Inks0ng_writes



Category: Naruto
Genre: Infinite Tsukuyomi Aftermath, Oneshot Series, Self-Insert, Time Loop, Time Travel, by their standards at least, when you try your best but you don't suceed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-08 11:23:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17980403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inks0ng_writes/pseuds/Inks0ng_writes
Summary: Just for me to store unfinished oneshots.Multifandom, in the future.





	1. Around and around, until you come up for air

**Author's Note:**

> Starting strong with a Naruto self-insert. :P
> 
> Most of these are probably going to end up being self-inserts, because they're literally the only things I wrote until last year.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

She doesn’t know where to start.

 

They say the beginning is best, but where does it begin? With a girl in her apartment, a cat in one hand and a spatula in the other? With a dying old man and nine creatures who aren’t quite real, aren’t quite human, aren’t quite monster? With two boys on the riverbank and their brothers behind them?

 

Maybe with a little blond boy with a smile too wide and a life too harsh and with no understand of who he is and who he will become?

 

Or maybe with a black haired girl with too-old eyes and far too much knowledge.

 

A little girl, who woke up in the body of a much younger girl, in a world so similar to her own and yet completely, utterly wrong. She breathed in smoke and ash and flame, exhaled dirt and sawdust and too much shattered hope, cutting like glass.

 

Sun and skin and bone wove the features of a girl with chubby cheeks and straight black hair- she looked at the world and screamed.

 

Yes, I think that works.

 

* * *

 

Our story is about a girl who dreamed.

 

Ah, that’s a bit too hopeful.

 

You see, it’s more accurate to say she lived with her head in the clouds, her nose in a book, and her feet forever wandering.

 

She wasn’t yet an adult, so to speak, but she wasn’t quite a child, and there were a thousand and one people just like her.

 

She had fears like the rest of them and ambitions like the rest of them, and, just like the rest of them, many areas of her life always fell flat compared to her expectations.

 

She dreamed to avoid reality, kept her eyes on people and places that didn’t belong with her, and left them shut to the things that did.

 

Reality was cold. Reality was boring. Reality was the very definition of disappointment.

 

So she walked with her face to the sky and her heart not far behind.

 


	2. Been There, Done That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it turns out that the doomsday scenario was the best-case scenario
> 
> (Kakashi's just sick of dying.)

So he lets go.

 

He lets go, wanting nothing more than to reach out and grab him by the shoulder, but a memory flashes in his mind-  _ vicious words and bloody gashes and falling falling falling-  _ and his hand falls back to his side as his genin- his  _ student _ \- disappears into the forest.

 

* * *

 

Naruto watches the sky, even as everyone else slowly pulls themselves out of the daze that followed the Tsukuyomi. People immediately start working on patching up comrades, looking after fallen teammates and missing friends, counting the bodies to be buried and the ones who still haven’t woken yet.

 

Naruto stands and limps over to Sasuke- Sasuke, who’s as pale and bloodstained as he might as well be forever. He punches him on the shoulder and ignores the wince the force of it earns. 

 

“We did it.”

 

He turns to see a flash of pink, watching Sakura, bustle about with the other Medics on hand and smiles to himself.

 

“We actually did it.”

 

* * *

 

Months later, during renovations and communications between councils and Kages and villages and who-knows-what-else, people begin feeling the backlash. Most are still grieving, or are finally letting themselves grieve, but there are a handful of those who are angry. Angry at the Akatsuki, angry the kages, the Jinchuuriki, Konohagakure.

 

Someone- he doesn’t know who- mentions fixing mistakes. He, personally, doesn’t know what more is left beyond rebuilding and moving on, but someone else brings a seal to council meetings, and another someone says that it could  _ work. _ And then everybody wants a new happy ending for themselves and  _ hasn’t he done enough? Will nothing ever be enough? _

 

When it looks like the councils members are actually starting to consider it, he stands, eyes dark. He turns away from the table and throws his hands in the air, letting out a frustrated scream. “I give up!”

 

Everything freezes.

 

“Hatake-” someone starts, and he whips around with a hiss.

 

“I don’t know what it’ll take to  _ please you people!” _ He spins on his heel and storms off to his tent.

 

“Everything I did!” He ducks the flap, comes out with his travel pack, and starts stuffing his supplies into it. “I don’t want anything else to do with it! I don’t care!”

 

Everyone is speechless, staring at him with barely controlled astonishment. He is privately amused at the ripple across the field they’re stationed at, as more and more shinobi become aware of the commotion. 

 

He jabs a finger in the direction of the previously bickering shinobi-alliance council members and snarls, “I gave my life for that seal, goddammit, and I’m not doing it again! I saved over three  _ hundred _ shinobi, and if you aren’t satisfied with that then  _ I don’t care. _ I’m done! I’m through! Two hundred and thirty five reset loops! You can  _ kiss my ass _ . Goodbye!”

 

No one stops him when he faces a random direction and marches off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time Travel!! Ooooh!
> 
> So. This.
> 
> If you liked it, please leave a kudo/comment, because my only validation comes in the form of faceless internet people.  
> ~Inksong

**Author's Note:**

> Most of these are going to be sooo short.
> 
> If you, for some reason, want to continue this, let me know! I'd love to read it.
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you feel up to it, leave a kudo/comment!  
> ~Inksong


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